In this episode of Mississippi Stories, Mississippi Editor-at-Large Marshall Ramsey sits down with Jeff Good about how Jackson’s continuing water crisis is pushing local independent restaurants to the brink.
Water is a huge part of a restaurant’s operation from drinks to food preparation to hand washing to ice and when drinks and ice have to be bought, dwindling profit margins (down 75% due to inflation) are stressed. Good speaks on behalf of other restaurants in Jackson and how leadership needs to start communicating to find a solution.
Mississippi is the only state in the modern era to rescind its initiative process that allowed voters to bypass the Legislature and place issues directly on the ballot.
In 2021 the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional the signature-gathering process as spelled out in the Constitution to place issues on the ballot. The ruling resulted in a medical marijuana initiative approved by voters in November 2020 and the entire initiative process being found to be invalid.
The Legislature could not agree during the 2022 session on language to revive the initiative process.
If the Legislature did restore the initiative, there would be at least five issues that could be the subject of initiative efforts. Those five issues, all opposed by many of the state’s political leaders, might be the reason legislators are reluctant to revive the initiative.
Those five initiatives would:
Expand Medicaid.
Allow early voting.
Approve recreational marijuana.
Restore abortion rights.
Allow people convicted of felonies to regain their voting rights at some point after they complete their sentence.
No doubt, there are other issues that most likely would be the subject of initiative efforts if the process was restored. Generally, initiatives are undertaken when legislators refuse to act on issues, such as on medical marijuana recently and on voter identification in 2011.
Medical marijuana was being rejected by the Legislature as a whole. In 2011, one chamber of the Legislature – the Democratic-controlled House – was blocking the enactment of a voter ID requirement.
Just like with medical marijuana and voter ID, the five issues cited above are currently being blocked by key legislators.
Medicaid expansion
Mississippi is one of 12 states that have not expanded Medicaid to provide health insurance for primarily the working poor. The two biggest obstacles to Medicaid expansion have been House Speaker Philip Gunn and Gov. Tate Reeves, who argue the state cannot afford to cover Mississippi’s share of the costs. Various studies have concluded that the expansion would actually be a boon to state coffers since the federal government would pay the bulk of the costs.
Various diverse groups ranging from the Mississippi Hospital Association to the Delta Council have endorsed expansion.
Early voting
Despite the rhetoric of former President Donald Trump and many of his supporters bemoaning the evils of early voting, 46 states allow no excuse early voting and 27 permit voting by mail. And most states were allowing the various forms of early voting long before the 2020 election and the COVID-19 pandemic.
And truth be known, early voting has long been popular. Still, Reeves and other Mississippi politicians proudly proclaim they will block any effort to place Mississippi within the mainstream of states by enacting no excuse early voting.
Recreational marijuana
Like with early voting and Medicaid expansion, there was a recreational marijuana initiative being considered when the Mississippi Supreme Court shut down the initiative process.
And granted, it might be a long shot that Mississippi voters would approve recreational marijuana. But marijuana supporters in Arkansas garnered significantly more signatures than needed to place the issue on the November ballot.
If Arkansans approve or come close to approving recreational marijuana in November, that could be a sign that Mississippians also are willing to consider the issue.
Felony suffrage
Mississippi is one of a few states (less than 10) that do not restore voting rights to people convicted of felonies at some point after they complete their sentence. The felony suffrage provision was incorporated into the 1890 Constitution by those attempting to prevent African Americans from voting.
Voters in Florida recently voted via ballot initiative to restore voting rights to people convicted of felonies.
Abortion rights
Granted, it has long been perceived that Mississippians as a whole are staunchly anti-abortion. But after the June ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Mississippi decision – Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization – overturning Roe v. Wade and rescinding a national right to an abortion, there has been a hue and cry by some to let Mississippians vote on the issue. After all, people who support abortion rights figure they have nothing to lose since existing Mississippi laws ban most abortions.
And there are a few reasons to give abortion rights supporters hope. For instance, in Kansas, a conservative state like Mississippi, voters recently rejected an anti-abortion proposal at the ballot box.
In addition, when Mississippians voted on abortion in 2011, they overwhelmingly defeated the “Personhood” initiative that defined life as beginning at conception. Plus, recent polling indicates that a vote on abortion in Mississippi might be close.
But unless the Legislature restores the initiative, we may never know how Mississippians feel about these issues and others.
As the police-led motorcade carrying the members of Mississippi country trio Chapel Hart made its way to the pavilion at Founders Square at the Neshoba County Fair on July 23, Devynn Hart was surprised by the number of cars she saw.
But she was truly shocked when they finally arrived, and she could see the crowd of people waiting to see her perform with her sister, Danica Hart, and cousin Trae Swindle, all childhood friends from Poplarville, on the Thacker Mountain Radio Hour. It’s a moment she won’t soon forget.
“Seeing everybody sing the words to our songs, [and] not just ‘You Can Have Him Jolene’—there were little kids there that knew all the words to almost every song that we performed—it’s mind blowing,” Devynn says.
Danica, who immediately outs herself as “the loud one,” agrees. “It sounded like we were performing at a stadium, and the only thing that I could think was, ‘Mississippi loud and proud, baby!’ I was right where I needed to be after all of this. You know, after everything exploded.”
She’s referring, of course, to Chapel Hart’s stunning televised audition on “America’s Got Talent” just four days earlier, which vaulted them onto the national stage. After performing their original song “You Can Have Him Jolene,” a response to Dolly Parton’s signature hit “Jolene,” the four celebrity judges—Simon Cowell, Heidi Klum, Howie Mandell and Sofia Vergara—put their hands on the coveted “golden buzzer,” a unanimous sign of approval ushering them straight to the competition rounds.
Social media immediately went nuts for the group, especially after Parton herself weighed in the following morning with a tweet praising their take on her “Jolene” tale. The group’s new fans sent their 2021 album, The Girls Are Back in Town, to the top of the iTunes country charts the same day. Even Darius Rucker jumped in, announcing they would sing on his next album.
Three weeks later, the Chapel Hart train is still rolling strong. The group’s “AGT” performance has been viewed more than seven million times on YouTube—on top of the seven or so million who watched it live on NBC—and their video for “You Can Have Him Jolene,” filmed in Pass Christian and released a year ago, is clocking views in the millions, as well.
Seated on a couch in a Ketchum, Idaho hotel suite, the ladies of Chapel Hart are beaming with energy and enthusiasm. They’re on a short tour, playing gigs booked before their breakout moment, until they’re due back in Los Angeles to continue their bid for the “AGT” crown. But they know that no matter the outcome of the show, they’ve already won big. A month from now, they’ll fulfill a dream by performing on the Grand Ole Opry. And the numbers don’t lie; they have the attention of country music fans, and likely the industry gatekeepers, as well.
Wracked with emotion standing on the “AGT” stage, Danica responded to Cowell through tears when he asked how they’ve been working to establish themselves in the country music industry. “We’ve been trying to break into Nashville for the last couple of years,” she said, “but it’s been kinda hard when I think country music doesn’t always look like us.”
Trae picks up her cousin’s train of thought, using a pointed anecdote she heard at a recent conference organized by Change the Conversation, a Nashville group established to pursue gender equality in country music, about the unspoken rules dictating how non-white and female artists get pushed in Music City.
“They highlighted a very specific, pertinent point—and it wasn’t just for minorities, it was for women and marginalized communities as a whole—Nashville has forever had this, ‘just one at a time’ concept,” Trae says. “For a while it was just Darius Rucker, then they slowly added the Jimmie Allens and the Brelands and the Kane Browns. Mickey Guyton just got pushed to the forefront last year, although she’s been in Nashville and in the music industry for over 15 years.”
Country music trio Chapel Hart hails from Poplarville Credit: Rudy Melancon
Similarly, the overnight success of Chapel Hart has been brewing for years, built on their mutual love of the country music that has been omnipresent in their lives since they were kids.
“Growing up in Poplarville, country music was the music,” Danica says. “If you’re going in the grocery store, the music playing overhead’s country music; if you’re on the school bus and the school bus driver brings his or her radio, it’s country music; if you have a job and you’re at work and they have music that goes on at work, it’s country music. Even I remember at nap time when we were little and they turned on music when you get ready to lay down and go to sleep, and it was country music.”
The lifestyle they portray in songs like “Jesus & Alcohol” and “That’s a Redneck Summer Night” comes honestly. Although they were in the pews on Sunday morning—Danica and Devynn are the daughters of a preacher, and their grandfather was a minister—come Saturday night, they were in a field drinking beer with friends. Danica characterizes their upbringing as “Rebel Baptist.” “I’ll pray you up to heaven and drink a little Budweiser afterwards,” she laughs.
Once they came together as a musical group, they went through years of woodshedding, networking and pounding the pavement for opportunities. Chapel Hart had been making connections for years, and their growth was steady until the “AGT” rocket ride began. The MuzikMafia hitmakers they sang along with in their youth, like “Redneck Woman” singer Gretchen Wilson, Cowboy Troy and Big & Rich, are now in their phones; Danica still gets a thrill when John Rich texts her to check on them.
“We always used to say, we wanna bring country music back to country radio,” Danica offers. “And so the push is just good country music, you know what I’m saying? It’s the stuff we grew up on it. It’s nineties country.”
Although the trio has been based in New Orleans for several years, they make an effort to show love for their home state. Devynn wore a Mississippi shirt on a recent CMT appearance, and they refer to her in songs like “4 Mississippi.” Their love of home comes with few asterisks, if any.
“Honestly, I think the world needs to understand that Mississippi is a place of just pure love,” Trae says. “I know that there are lots of stigmas on Mississippi, being at the bottom of the list for a lot of things, from education to health to everything else. Danica often says it in our show, talking about growing up, a lot of people were too poor to even know the difference, so everyone came together. And I feel like seeing us do what we’re doing on such a scale is showing the power of that Mississippi hospitality. You have people who are in completely different socioeconomic classes, completely different culturally, but, like, being brought together all the sake of good music.”
The Oxford Police Department released a statement Friday afternoon that the killing of Jimmie “Jay” Lee, a Black student who was well-known in the town’s LGBTQ community, is an “isolated incident” that does not reflect a broader threat to queer people in Mississippi.
The statement comes three days after a Lafayette County judge determined there was probable cause for police to arrest Sheldon Timothy Herrington Jr., a 22-year-old Ole Miss graduate, for Lee’s murder, and that he should be held without bond.
“Based on the information collected to date, our investigators believe this crime represents an isolated incident stemming from the relationship between Jay Lee and Tim Herrington,” the release states.
Members of the LGBTQ community in Oxford have been asking police to release more information about the nature of the case ever since Herrington was arrested three weeks ago. Many members said more transparency from police would help them make decisions about how to stay safe.
Police nodded to this perspective in the release: “More broadly, we want to stress that our agencies are committed to doing all that we can to maintain a safe environment for everyone in our community.”
Members of the LBGTQ community are more likely to be the victim of physical harm from domestic and intimate partners. This is especially true for Black queer people who face compounded discrimination due to homophobia and racism — a routine threat of violence that is personal and systemic, with roots much deeper than any one case.
The release also follows a story Mississippi Today published earlier this week based on accounts from 11 LGBTQ students, faculty and University of Mississippi alumni who said they no longer felt safe in Oxford. At least one community member is afraid to leave their house, said Jaime Harker, the director of the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies at UM and the owner of Violet Valley, a feminist bookstore near Oxford.
Harker said she felt that OPD’s silence contributed to harrowing rumors in the community about the nature and reason for Lee’s killing.
“I think people are filling the void with what their biggest fears are,” she said.
Lee, 20, was a well-known member of Oxford’s LBGTQ community who regularly performed at Code Pink, a local drag night. An open, confident person, Lee ran for homecoming king last year to promote a platform of “self love and living your truth.” He repeatedly spoke out about the harassment received for wearing women’s clothing.
For many people in the community, Lee’s outspokenness made his disappearance all the more terrifying.
Lindsey Trinh, a senior journalism student at Ole Miss, told Mississippi Today that after weeks of receiving no information about Lee’s killing, she decided she was too fearful and anxious to return to classes in person. She wrote an email to the university provost and her professors explaining how Lee’s case had affected her.
“At the time and because of the unknown of why this has happened to Jay and the whereabouts of his body, I have decided that I cannot physically come back to Oxford for my last semester this Fall,” Trinh wrote in her email. “I fear for my safety and well-being as an outspoken and proud gay person of color.”
Authorities believe that Lee’s body, still missing, is somewhere in Lafayette or Grenada County. But the circumstantial evidence that police have so far gathered was enough to bring charges, Lafayette County Assistant District Attorney Tiffany Kilpatrick argued in court on Tuesday.
“In 2022 you do not need a body,” Kilpatrick said. “It’s not the 1870s.”
During the preliminary hearing, Kilpatrick alleged that Herrington’s casual relationship with Lee was unknown to his friends and family. She said that early in the morning on July 8, Herrington “lured” Lee to his apartment, strangled him, and then “staged a cover up” by driving Lee’s car to Molly Barr Trails, a student housing complex.
Herrington then picked up a box truck belonging to his moving company, Kilpatrick said, and drove it to his parent’s house in Grenada where he retrieved a long-handle shovel and wheelbarrow.
Kilpatrick argued that Herrington should have been denied bond because his charge – first-degree murder – will likely be elevated to capital murder as police uncover more evidence; some of which is still being processed at a private crime lab. Kilpatrick also argued Herrington was a flight risk, noting that a forensic search of his MacBook showed he had searched for flights from Dallas to Singapore.
Herrington’s defense attorney, state Rep. Kevin Horan, disputed that Herrington, who has $1,910 in his bank account, could afford to flee the state. In his closing statement, Horan said the prosecution’s case amounted to “suspicion, conjecture and speculation.”
Horan called four witnesses who testified, in an effort to obtain bond for Herrington, to his character and connections to the community in Grenada. The witnesses included Herrington’s mother, an elder at his church, one of his teachers, and ??Emily Tindell, the principal of Grenada High School.
Tindell said that Herrington and his family have “the best of character in Grenada County.”
In her closing statement, Kilpatrick said that Herrington was not the same person that his teachers and family described.
“They don’t know this other Tim Herrington, his double life,” she said. “They don’t know the Tim Herrington who lives in anonymity. This Tim Herrington, your honor, is the Tim Herrington who killed Jay Lee.”
Jackson State University announced it has postponed move-in dates this fall as the capital city’s “unprecedented water pressure issues” are affecting water flow on the upper floors of student housing.
JSU’s campus is just west of downtown Jackson, an area contendingwith low pressure after the city pulled some water pumps offline earlier this week due to mechanical issues at the OB Curtis Water Treatment Plant.This comes as the city remains under a boil water notice issued two weeks ago by the Mississippi State Department of Health due to higher than average levels of turbidity, or cloudiness, in the water.
The university is now planning for the 750 new students who were scheduled to move-in this Saturday to come to campus starting Thursday, Aug. 18. The move-in date for returning students is now Saturday, Aug. 20. But those dates are still subject to the city restoring water pressure, according to a press release posted to the university’s social media.
Classes are still scheduled to start on Monday, Aug. 22.
“While we know this is a huge inconvenience, the postponement is the right thing to do to prevent students from arriving on campus while we’re experiencing these water issues,” university officials said in the press release.
Last week, city officials said that while they did not have a “definitive timeline” for lifting the boil water notice, they hoped service would be back to fully functioning starting today for well-system customers starting today and as early as Saturday for surface system customers.
The water issues are also affecting Jackson Public Schools, the superintendent told WAPT, affecting the ability of some larger buildings that are more than 50 years old to flush toilets.
“We’re at a place now where many of our buildings are failing us,” Errick Greene said. “HVAC systems, plumbing systems, electricity, we’re constantly patching, fixing, and running behind so many issues.”
JSU, a historically Black college, relies on the city water system but for years has sought for years for support from the Legislature to construct its own. Though lawmakers this session appropriated American Rescue Plan Act funds for capital projects at Mississippi’s eight public universities, most of the bills seeking infrastructure improvements for JSU – such as new dormitories – died in committee.
Of the 17 bills introduced last session for capital improvements at JSU, only one – a bill authorizing the university to sell land to a private entity to develop student housing – was signed into law. Capital projects for the universities are sometimes funded through appropriation and bond bills.
One of the unsuccessful bills, proposed earlier this year by Rep. Angela Cockerham, an independent from Magnolia,sought $8 million for JSU for costs associated with building a separate water system.
Cockerham said she has thought for years that JSU, her alma mater, needs its own water supply. This issue became particularly urgent, she said, after seeing how last year’s ice storm affected the campus. Students, faculty and staff didn’t have clean water, according to HBCU Advocate, and the university had to install portable showers and restrooms near the dorms.
The impact on students of the university pushing its move-in date underscores the need for her bill, Cockerham said.
“Some students live here locally, but a lot of students are coming from out of state,” she said. “This severely affects the parents, especially if they bought plane tickets, if they rented cars, if they’ve got U-hauls.”
The university’s press release states that the financial aid and business offices will be available to assist students with completing registration during the new move-in dates.
Four Mississippi universities have their own water systems, according to the Institutions of Higher Learning, including Alcorn State University, Mississippi Valley State University, Mississippi State University, and the University of Mississippi.
The University of Mississippi Medical Center uses its own water source for about 90% of campus with the remaining coming from the city, IHL’s spokesperson, Caron Blanton, wrote in an email earlier this year.
IHL has received $25 million in ARPA funds for capital projects at all eight public universities, but it’s likely not enough to cover the full scope of the need at each university. JSU’s portion is a little more than $2 million, Blanton wrote in an email.
For JSU alone, IHL had initially requested $17.8 million in ARPA funds for the university to implement a range of upgrades to its plumbing and sewage systems, such as installing water meters and filtration systems on the service lines for 52 university buildings and replacing a sewer line on Lynch Street.
The request would have also funded a plan “to implement an alternate water supply system to serve the JSU campus.”
JSU has also been seeking to build new dorms to alleviate a waitlist of more than 600 students seeking on-campus housing. At a town hall last month, President Thomas Hudson addressed the university’s housing issues, which he said stemmed from “years of underfunding,” according to a press release.
Hudson said the university is taking a “two-prong approach to this issue” that includes repairing the current on-campus housing and looking to build new dorms in the coming year.
“It’s long overdue for JSU, and it’s long overdue for a new residence hall that meets our growing demand and is more in line with what our students need and want,” Hudson said. “We ask that everyone be patient with us; work with us. We’re going to try and place as many students as we can this year.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include the amount JSU received from IHL’s $25 million ARPA appropriation.
Mississippi’s former welfare director said he was acting on behalf of then-Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves, text messages indicate, when he funneled $1.3 million into a fitness program that the state is now targeting in its civil lawsuit to recoup millions in misspent federal dollars.
Reeves’ longtime personal trainer and buddy Paul Lacoste is a defendant in the suit – the state’s primary response to the blockbuster scandal uncovered in 2020. The lawsuit has an uncertain fate now that the Reeves administration has fired the attorney bringing the case and Reeves made clear he is calling the shots in the litigation, which is now stalled.
Over the last decade, Lacoste ingrained himself in Mississippi politics, prompting the state’s welfare program to strike a lucrative partnership with his foundation. Not only was the expenditure a violation of federal regulations, auditors and attorneys eventually argued, but emails obtained by Mississippi Today allege Lacoste also paid himself upwards of $300,000 in bonus paychecks from the program.
The trainer was so gung-ho about getting his grant funding from the state, he even told former welfare director John Davis that he’d bring the hammer down on Reeves and another lawmaker in their workout if they didn’t give Davis the budget he wanted. And that the politicians agreed to oblige.
“I told Tate and Senator Josh Harkins this week at training to fully fund you or I would make them pay for it at training,” Lacoste wrote to Davis in a February 2019 text obtained by Mississippi Today. “They told me…”oh, we are taking care of John.””
Months before, Davis, who is now facing charges of fraud and bribery in the scandal, helped the trainer secure a welfare grant from the nonprofit run by Nancy New, another defendant in the criminal and civil cases.
But during the 2019 Legislative session, Lacoste was pushing Davis for meetings with Reeves, who wielded great control over appropriations in the Legislature, and other lawmakers to “share our hearts with them and to get them on board with us politically and financially.” One proposal suggests a 10-year, $13 million commitment from the welfare program for his fitness classes.
Lacoste told Davis that Reeves had selected a date and location for their meeting, and that Reeves wanted to meet with the two men alone before the full meeting to discuss the project. “Tate wants us all to himself!” Lacoste wrote.
Two days after meeting with Reeves, Davis asked his deputy to find a way to push a large sum of money to New’s nonprofit without triggering a red flag in an audit, so that the nonprofit could fund Lacoste’s boot camp. Davis called the project “the Lt. Gov’s fitness issue.”
Auditors say Lacoste’s organization Victory Sports Foundation improperly received over $1.3 million in funds from a federal welfare program called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, to conduct free boot camp-style fitness courses for well-to-do community members.
Months later, Lacoste cut commercials publicly endorsing Reeves for governor. Reeves won the election with 52% of the vote.
Reeves did not grant Mississippi Today an interview for this story. But when presented with Mississippi Today’s findings, Reeves staffer Cory Custer responded in a written statement: “It’s entirely possible that—before the abuse was uncovered—Tate Reeves said nice things in passing about people he is now suing and/or the stated goals of DHS. This was all before the fraud was revealed. How is he supposed to remember inconsequential conversations from years ago?”
Credit: Graphic by Bethany Atkinson
Reeves’ connection to this part of the welfare scheme has not been made public until now, shortly after his administration canned the lawyer who crafted the zealous civil complaint against 38 people or companies — including Lacoste.
The governor publicly accused attorney Brad Pigott, a former Bill Clinton-appointed U.S. Attorney who was closing in on many of Reeves’ campaign donors and supporters, of having a political agenda in his handling of the case. Reeves is also accusing Mississippi Today, which has led coverage of the scandal and published damning text messages related to welfare spending that officials have tried to keep out of the public, of “political games.”
“Secondhand characterizations of passing conversations and participation in a workout program that long-predated TANF abuse are hardly newsworthy. They certainly don’t help the argument that Mississippi Today is anything more than a left-wing blog that prioritizes rumors and political games over journalism.”
Gov. Reeves office’s written response to this story
In addition to conducting the workout courses as hired, Lacoste used the money to pay himself a monthly salary of about $11,000, in addition to separate payments of as much as $25,000, purchase a $70,000 vehicle, launch high-price marketing campaigns and treat himself and others to steak dinners, according to audit reports and ledgers Mississippi Today examined.
The civil suit also accuses Lacoste of charging participants a fee for courses he was already being paid with grant funds to conduct – an assertion Lacoste’s attorney denies.
An email from the Nancy New nonprofit says the nonprofit’s internal review found Paul Lacoste received more than $300,000 in bonus paychecks.
“LaCoste never proposed or intended to provide services designed specifically to accomplish any lawful TANF purpose. Nor did he ever do so in response to the TANF funding he and Victory Sports sought and received,” wrote Pigott, who was hired on contract by the welfare department to bring the civil litigation.
In a reply in support of a motion to dismiss the case, Lacoste denies he broke any laws or contract obligations, saying neither the state welfare agency nor the nonprofit told him the payments he received were from TANF funds.
While criminal investigations are ongoing, officials have not accused Lacoste of any crime.
In recent years, auditors found that Mississippi officials and political cronies stole or diverted at least $77 million intended for needy residents to other projects in violation of federal law. Federal law gives states extreme flexibility to define for itself what helping the needy looks like, but auditors say Mississippi crossed the line in its use of TANF funds, which were controlled by an agency under the authority of Gov. Phil Bryant.
Much of the money officials squandered was funneled through the nonprofit founded by former First Lady Deborah Bryant’s friend Nancy New, who has pleaded guilty to several charges of fraud and bribery and agreed to aid prosecutors in their ongoing probes.
The welfare agency had contracted with New’s nonprofit, Mississippi Community Education Center, purportedly to help run a statewide anti-poverty program called Families First for Mississippi.
Lacoste, a 47-year-old retired linebacker for Mississippi State University and the Canadian Football League, had been training Reeves, a 49-year-old career politician, for over a decade by the time the fitness trainer partnered with the state’s welfare program in 2018.
“As Tate Reeves’ coach for 15 years, I’ve seen sweat pouring off his face and those glasses of Tate’s fogged up from intensity that he’s given at every station,” Lacoste said in his 2019 commercial endorsing Reeves in the gubernatorial race.
Lacoste had trained lawmakers for free through a program called “Fit 4 Change” since 2010. Participants would write an “accountability check” of several hundred dollars, which they would receive back at the end of the 12-week program as long as they didn’t miss more than six sessions, in which case Lacoste would cash the check. Reeves was a poster child for this program.
Lacoste was a tough trainer, known for screaming at his pupils and pushing them to exhaustion. But he was also on a redemption path, finding Jesus after contracting West Nile and going through a nasty divorce.
In August of 2018, Dawn Dugle, then-digital marketing director for conservative talk radio network SuperTalk, introduced Davis and Lacoste by email. SuperTalk and its parent company TeleSouth Communications were also entrenched in Families First. They received hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of advertising contracts from the welfare program and aired glowing interviews about the state’s new approach to mitigating poverty.
“It sounds like there might be synergy in what you both are trying to do for the state of Mississippi,” wrote Dugle, also a boot camp participant.
Davis and Lacoste met the next day, striking up what would become a very friendly relationship, with the two men calling each other “brother” and texting “I love you.”
“He is one of the most inspirational indiviudals (sic) I have met in some time,” Davis told Dugle. “I appreciate the opportunity to get to know him even better.”
Lacoste drafted a proposal, which included him conducting motivational speaking seminars, and worked with the New nonprofit to set up a contract. Lacoste would be considered a partner of both Families First and Mississippi Department of Human Services and use their logos in promotional materials. The contract, inked in October of 2018, said he would receive the funds in a lump sum payment from the New nonprofit, Mississippi Community Education Center, or MCEC.
“The fact that Paul Lacoste was communicating directly with John Davis on the scope of work, and John Davis’s request to MCEC that they work with (Lacoste’s attorney) Michael Heilman, provides indication that John Davis’s influence was needed for Victory Sports to be awarded a grant from MCEC,” reads an October 2021 forensic audit, which questioned the contract because of the influence Davis had in its awarding.
Though texts show a Families First representative first reached out to Lacoste on Davis’ behalf, Davis lamented about Lacoste’s enthusiasm over the partnership. “I try to avoid him as much as possible cause he is always asking for money,” Davis once texted, referring to Lacoste.
The first boot camp began in January in Pascagoula.
The next month, several lawmakers were slated to attend the meeting with Lacoste and Davis at the Capitol to discuss “Mississippi’s long-term statewide fitness, nutrition and wellness initiative to destroy obesity and all related diseases.” Lacoste texted an invitation directly to Reeves’ cell phone. Another one of the lawmakers, Sen. Josh Harkins, R-Flowood, told Mississippi Today he did not recall attending the meeting, though he was in Lacoste’s boot camp.
“I heard Paul explain that the program was sponsored by private entities but was not aware of any other funding sources,” Harkins said by email.
Text messages obtained by Mississippi Today and retrieved from Reeves’ cellphone show that since May of 2020, at which point the welfare scandal had been uncovered, Lacoste has texted the sitting governor ten times, with the last message in October of 2020. There were no responses, at least by text message, from Reeves to any of Lacoste’s texts. The tenor of the messages suggests Lacoste considered Reeves his buddy.“I love you, Brother! You are doing GREAT with EVERYTHING!” he texted on June 30, 2020, the day Reeves signed a historic bill to change the state flag.
Two days after the meeting, the former director of the Mississippi Department of Human Services John Davis texted his deputy to ask if he could find an additional $2.5 million in federal grant funds for MCEC.
The nonprofit needed the cash, Davis explained, because it had just paid Lacoste for what Davis described as Reeves’ “fitness issue.” At the time, Reeves was lieutenant governor presiding over the Mississippi Senate. Reeves was notorious at the Capitol for strong-arming his fellow legislative leaders and exercised great control over the state budget, which included the state’s portion of the welfare agency’s annual appropriation.
“Do you have about $2.5 that you can get transferred today to MCEC,” Davis texted deputy Jacob Black, an attorney who helped the agency find loopholes or write creative grants in order to spend welfare funds in the way politicians wanted, Mississippi Today first reported. “They just paid Paul Lacoste on the Lt. Gov’s fitness issue that we met on Wednesday. … The Lt. Gov is very supportive of what we and as I told him you are doing.”
Mississippi Community Education Center shared the responsibility of running Families First for Mississippi with one other nonprofit, Family Resource Center of North Mississippi. Awarded nearly $100 million in welfare agency funding between them, they promised to open centers across the state to provide parenting and workforce development training to needy families, but most of their funding they passed on through grants to other partners.
Private messages obtained by Mississippi Today indicate there was strife between the welfare agency, the nonprofits and other figures in early 2019, shortly after Davis sent letters to TANF subgrantees indicating their budgets would be cut. A news story at the time indicated that Family Resource Center was forced to lay off 100 employees and close 10 of its offices.
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An email from Nancy New’s accountant shows her nonprofit was asking for $2.5 million to fund four projects, including Victory Sports, Supertalk advertisements, a program at University of Mississippi and a virtual reality center by a politically-connected startup called Lobaki. (Ole Miss says it never received the funding from MCEC). This email is heavily discussed in one of the forensic audit reports that led the auditor to make a $3 million demand for repayment on Black, though he has not been named in the civil suit. By that time, the nonprofit had paid Victory Sports Foundation about $350,000 and Lacoste was asking the New nonprofit to pay the rest of the money under the nearly $1.4 million contract.
When Davis asked Black to find the money, Black responded by text, “I think I can figure it out and get the money over there due to the cuts we made.”
But he’d have to be clever about it. “Let me figure out how to do it without creating an audit finding,” Black added.
“Oh yes sir. No audit finding,” Davis responded.
Black, who declined to comment for this story, issued the payment to MCEC that day, according to the forensic audit. MCEC paid Victory Sports not in a lump sum, but in several payments over the following five months, according to Mississippi Today’s review of the nonprofit’s ledger, which the state auditor previously said could be fabricated.
Credit: Graphic by Bethany Atkinson
Victory Sports held two more 12-week boot camps during the summer of 2019, as Davis was being ousted from office, in Brookhaven and Greenville. Lacoste’s contract with Mississippi Community Education Center did not require him to restrict the free program to disadvantaged residents. He submitted several testimonials to MDHS from participants who saw health improvements from the program.
And the program accomplished more than helping people lose weight.
“I think those kinds of community initiatives need to be done, especially in a real diverse community like we got,” said Rep. John Hines, D-Greenville, who went through the program. “One thing I do know is Black folks and white folks, male and female, working together, sweating together, crying together, fussing together, cussing together and playing together was good for our community. I met some people I never would have met, never would have had a conversation with.”
But folks in Brookhaven were concerned and complained to Mississippi Community Education Center about how Victory Sports was using its grant funding. Lacoste’s boot camp would be one of the first problematic grant contracts identified by investigators.
“We have identified concerns with Victory Sports’ expense reports and services. Also, we have had a number of complaints concerning his services,” New wrote in an email to MDHS officials in September of 2019, after the auditor’s office had already begun its official investigation and Davis was ousted. “…Paul LaCoste was asked not to use Families First for Mississippi’s brand and his funding was suspended.”
In November of 2019, Heilman, Lacoste’s attorney, requested payment of over $85,000 he says the nonprofit owed Victory Sports Foundation.
In response, Nancy New’s other son Jess New emailed the attorney to notify him that the nonprofit identified over $300,000 in “unallowed expenses” during an internal review of the fitness program’s expenditures. This includes bonus checks to Lacoste; fees to two consultants that are a relative and friend to Lacoste; fees to a law firm and tax preparer; and health insurance premiums for Lacoste’s family members, according to a January 2020 email.
“Furthermore, we once again reiterate the the (sic) truck purchased by VSF (Victory Sports Foundation) should be returned to MCEC immediately,” wrote Jess New, who is also a defendant in the civil suit but not the criminal case.
Lacoste continued to email the News and other nonprofit employees several times asking for payment and denying that any purchases were unallowed, emails show.
Auditors and the state’s civil complaint also allege Lacoste used the Victory Sports Foundation grant to serve lawmakers and other wealthy community members and charged fees for some participants even though the grant was supposed to ensure the program was free.
“Defendant Paul LaCoste … directly proposed to MDHS Executive Director John Davis that Davis steer substantial grant funds to Victory Sports (and thus to LaCoste) in exchange for LaCoste’s continuing provision of ‘fitness camps’ to elected officials, their political staffs, and fee-paying participants,” the complaint reads.
In a recent interview with Mississippi Today, Heilman said that the other boot camps Lacoste conducted – the one for lawmakers and other courses that charged an enrollment fee – were distinct and separate from the welfare-funded program. Heilman said his client’s for-profit company, Paul Lacoste Sports, not the welfare-funded Victory Sports Foundation, were responsible for those courses.
Mississippi Today was the first to uncover in February of 2020 that Lacoste’s program had received welfare funding. In response, Heilman demanded Mississippi Today for a retraction and Lacoste threatened legal action in an email to his subscribers.
Heilman, whose firm was also paid several thousand under the grant for work the firm did negotiating Lacoste’s contract, is aggressively aiming to get the complaint against Lacoste thrown out. He argues in a July filing that Lacoste violated no laws and fulfilled the obligations of his contract, which was with a private nonprofit, not the state, and did not specify the funds came from the TANF program. Lacoste, like many of the unsuspecting welfare recipients within the scandal, has argued he had no idea the money he received came from the welfare fund and would not have accepted the contract if he did.
Pigott argued in response that, “As Defendant Paul Lacoste would have it, Mississippi law makes it easy for a grantee of government funds (required by a statute and contract to be used for a specified public purpose) to convert those funds from that purpose by entering subcontract agreements in terms which simply ignore the public purpose.”
“Under the theory,” Pigott continued, “… a private recipient of grant funds from the government can simply give away the government funds to another grantee, through private subgrant contracts which make no specific mention of the governmental status of either the funds or their purpose. And with that, supposedly, Mississippi law allows the grantor and grantee to wash their hands of the governing statutes and original grant contracts, and to spend the public money on private projects they have decided they prefer to the public purpose for which the money they are spending was raised through taxes, appropriated through legislation, authorized by regulations, and disbursed through governmental contracts requiring their expenditure for the statutory purpose alone.”
Heilman shot back a reply that argued the state had failed to substantiate any breach of contract and accused the state of putting forth a red herring.
Heilman said the TANF scandal has destroyed Lacoste’s business and livelihood, and that the trainer hasn’t been able to find work because of the public’s scorn towards him. The attorney argues that officials in charge of spending welfare money approached Lacoste, not the other way around, and in turn sullied his decades-long mission to help Mississippians get in shape.
In the end, Lacoste’s enmeshment in Mississippi politics and state government led to the demise of his vision.
“I think that Paul’s passion for improving the overall health of Mississippi and Mississippians comes through in every single class that he does,” Reeves told the Associated Press in a 2013 article.
Below is the entire statement from Cory Custer, deputy chief of staff in external affairs for the governor’s office, in response to this story.
Governor Reeves has tasked new agency leadership with cleaning up the DHS mess he inherited and eliminating any waste, fraud, and abuse of federal welfare funds. Their work since the Reeves administration began has not been questioned because it is entirely appropriate and Mississippi Today knows it. However, Mississippi Today is now attempting to use anecdotes and innuendo to paint a fictional picture.
Secondhand characterizations of passing conversations and participation in a workout program that long-predated TANF abuse are hardly newsworthy. They certainly don’t help the argument that Mississippi Today is anything more than a left-wing blog that prioritizes rumors and political games over journalism.
It’s entirely possible that—before the abuse was uncovered—Tate Reeves said nice things in passing about people he is now suing and/or the stated goals of DHS. This was all before the fraud was revealed. How is he supposed to remember inconsequential conversations from years ago?
There is real investigative work being done on the TANF scandal, but this latest narrative is just desperate and embarrassing politics by Mississippi Today.
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The Mississippi State Department of Health (MSDH) announced on Thursday it is expanding the eligibility criteria for receiving a monkeypox vaccine to include LGBTQ+ Mississippians at risk of infection.
Mississippi’s initial allotment of the Jynneos monkeypox vaccine included enough doses to inoculate 300 people. Due to the limited supply, the vaccine has only been available to those who have had close, intimate contact with an infected person.
Now, Mississippians over the age of 18 who identify as gay, bisexual or transgender may be eligible for vaccination if they report having multiple or anonymous sexual partners or have attended an event where the virus may have been transmitted.
“While anyone who is exposed to monkeypox through close person-to-person or intimate contact may become infected, most of the cases being seen in this outbreak are among individuals who are gay, bisexual or other men who have sex with men,” State Epidemiologist Dr. Paul Byers said in a statement.
The monkeypox vaccine is only available by appointment at county health department clinics in the following counties: Lee, Panola, Leflore, Lowndes, Lauderdale, Adams, Hinds, Forrest, and Harrison. Those who wish to check their eligibility and schedule an appointment can do so by calling MSDH’s Monkeypox Call Center at 1-877-978-6453.
Though MSDH has expanded eligibility, supplies are extremely limited, and the department still does not know how many more doses the state will receive through the rest of the year.
The monkeypox virus has spread to dozens of countries and infected more than 31,000 people worldwide since the outbreak began in May. Eleven cases have been identified in Mississippi to date. As of Aug. 11, there were 10,768 confirmed monkeypox cases in the U.S., according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data.
Monkeypox, which is part of the same family of viruses as smallpox, has not caused any deaths outside of Africa during the current outbreak, but does produce painful symptoms. Transmission often occurs through close skin-to-skin contact with an infected person. Airborne transmission can also occur during prolonged close contact with an infected person.
Symptoms of monkeypox can include: fever, headache, muscle aches, swollen lymph nodes, chills and exhaustion. Infected persons often experience a rash that looks like pimples or blisters that appear on many parts of the body and fill with pus over time. The illness typically lasts for two to four weeks, and after an infected person’s pustules scab over, and the scabs fall off, they are no longer infectious.
The Biden administration declared the monkeypox outbreak a national health emergency on Aug. 4. In addition to increasing public awareness of the virus, the declaration frees up federal funding for the further creation and vetting of medical treatments.
The World Health Organization declared monkeypox a global public health emergency on July 23, the first time it has taken this step since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020. Monkeypox, COVID-19 and polio are the only diseases that have this designation.
Q: It seems at this point this would be best investigated by outside authorities. Do you know if the U.S. Attorney General’s office or Justice Department is, or will be investigating?
Q: Did Phil Bryant know that you had his text messages before he sat down for the interview with you?
A: Yes, he did. It’s the only reason he agreed to the interview. He wanted to “look me in the eye,” his spokesperson said, because he had concerns about “crucifixion by innuendo.”
Q: This is an opinion question of sorts, but assuming Tate’s move was political, why would he have incentive to remove Pigott? It seems like an unforced error that just draws scrutiny on him.
A: Yes, Gov. Reeves’ comments last week illustrated how much control his office has had over the welfare department’s handling of the case. The welfare department is, of course, an executive agency under the control of the governor and run by a Reeves-appointed director. Based on Reeves’ connections to some of the defendants or potential defendants, it does raise questions about how MDHS can be an impartial lead on the case.
Q: Please tell me more about what could possibly happen to former Governor Phil Bryant. Wasn’t he supposedly getting a kick-back from it?
A: Two days after Bryant left office, the founder of Prevacus texted him and said, “Now that you’re unemployed I’d like to give you a company package for all your help …We want and need you on our team!!!”
Over his last year in office, Bryant helped Favre and Prevacus by participating in fundraisers, connecting them with an investor and making inroads with the FDA. The company also received $2 million in stolen welfare funds from Mississippi. “Sounds good,” Bryant responded. “Where would be the best place to meet. I am now going to get on it hard…”
Bryant says he never accepted the stock, but even an attempt to receive a bribe or kickback can be considered a crime in statute. Nancy New has also alleged that Phil Bryant directed her to make the $1.1 million payment to Brett Favre.
Q: Just how involved/guilty is Brett Favre in this?
A: Brett Favre was the inspiration behind at least $8.25 million in TANF spending (volleyball, $5M, Prevacus/PreSolMD, $2.15M, himself, $1.1M). And he knew these were grant funds, his texts show.
He also said, “Don’t know if legal or not but we need to cut him in,” with reference to giving then-Gov. Phil Bryant stock in Prevacus in exchange for his help.
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Q: Do you think Auditor Shad held onto the case for too long before alerting the feds?
A: Some experts we talked to noted that was strange.
Q: Do you feel cases like this embezzlement scandal make your job as an investigative journalist easier or harder? What’s the most enjoyable parts about it all for you?
Please please please keep your foot on the gas; your efforts are invaluable to those of us residents who recognize the abject corruption in this state.
A: I began reporting on TANF before this scandal broke and that was really, really hard. I knew something wasn’t right, but the agency blocked me from getting any information that would allow me to tell the stories I knew were there. Shad White’s arrests in February 2020 definitely set off a chain reaction for me. I focused my reporting on elements of the case that weren’t public (or at least public yet), like breaking stories about the USM volleyball stadium, Marcus Dupree’s horse ranch, and of course, Phil Bryant’s text messages with Brett Favre. Making my own discoveries and making connections I didn’t pick up on before is definitely one of the [most fun] parts of my job.
Q: Geoff Pender writes.., “(Tate Reeves) said criminal investigations are ongoing by the U.S. Department of Justice, FBI, Health and Human Services fraud investigators and others.”
I hate to admit it, but doesn’t Reeves have a point in using this as the defense for firing Pigott?
Why would Pigott be investigating something the Feds aren’t? WHY would the feds not be interested in the things Pigott’s interested in?
A: I don’t think anyone is arguing that the feds aren’t investigating USM. It wasn’t Pigott’s responsibility to know what the feds considered a crime or not. He was bringing a separate civil suit, which attempts to recoup the money. Some targets in the civil suit (such as Prevacus, John Davis, etc.) are still wrapped up in criminal proceedings and investigations, so it’s not as though the state is avoiding any of those folks in its current civil suit.
The $5 million the USM athletic foundation received would be an obvious target for any civil litigator because 1) it’s the biggest ticket item in the entire scheme, 2) it’s easy to prove laws were broken—a defendant has already pleaded guilty to such in state court and 3) the athletic foundation might actually have the money to pay it back, unlike many other defendants.
Q: Do you have any hope this reporting will lead to any positive changes? I only ask because I am a disenfranchised Mississippian who sees the same scenario play out time and again with minimal repercussions on the “politicians” that started the mess to begin.
A: I totally understand this sentiment and I ask myself this question a lot. Ideally, we’d see some big consequence or policy change that we could point to, to know we’re making an impact, but that’s not usually the reality. After the Backchannel published, I got a call from someone pretty high up in government that told me because of the reporting, “I feel emboldened more than ever to just tell the truth and know that that’s the right thing to do.” That stuck with me. Too many of the ills of this state are the result of secret-keeping. I can’t think of many better ways for us to have a positive impact than penetrating the culture of silence that has kept Mississippians in the dark.
Q: The welfare money is federal money. The FBI, Department of Justice and probably the IRS and US Postal Inspector should be swooping in and investigating everyone and every organization involved. Any word on that aspect?
A: You’re right. Nancy New’s plea deal struck in April signals that state and federal authorities are still investigating. And they got a pretty sweet deal to cooperate, which would lead one to believe they’re pursuing those involved at the top.
Q: Is there any chance anyone other than Nancy New and her group being punished for this? When I say punished I mean actual punishment, not a slap on the wrist type fine for less than what was stolen.
A: Yes, the six people arrested in 2020 are certainly facing consequences, even if they haven’t yet been sentenced to prison time. Sentencing won’t happen until the investigation is concluded and it’s hard to predict how much time, if any, each defendant will get. I’ve heard a lot of doubt about the civil suit being fruitful: Many of the defendants likely do not have the funds to pay whatever damages they may be hit with. If it’s determined they broke the law, wage garnishment is an option, but some of them aren’t even working right now. So what I think you’re asking is, will anyone else be arrested? The feds, as is typical, have been super quiet so I can’t answer that.
Q: Does the Biden justice department actually have the appetite to take this on? We hear a lot about the FBI and the federal part of this, but previous JDs were hesitant to get involved in obvious cases.
A: That’s a good question. Biden hasn’t appointed a U.S. Attorney in Jackson, which has inevitably had an impact on the progress of the case. They have no political reason not to pursue this case to the furthest extent. But it’s also not exactly a cut-and-dried investigation. It’s a mammoth.
Q: Are you aware of any individuals who were knowingly involved but whose names have never been made public?
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Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain plans to ask the Legislature to pass a bill to allow incarcerated people to construct buildings as a form of job training, a tie in with the department’s focus on reentry.
Under state law, the Department of Administration and Finance oversees construction, repairs, additions and demolition for all state buildings. The department also reviews and pre-approves all architectural and engineering service contracts for building projects.
Cain said licensed contractors are required to build any state building, which is why he sees a need for a change in state law.
“It takes too long and we need to move faster,” he told Mississippi Today about the current process. “Those are the things we can hone our own skills on and have the inmates build the buildings themselves.”
Cain envisions incarcerated people constructing one-story buildings that are no more than 5,000 square feet to house prison programs such as a welding school, carpentry program or a commercial truck driving simulator.
The buildings would be at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, which has the most space compared to the state’s other prisons. A certified contractor, electrician, roofer and others involved would supervise incarcerated people during construction, he said.
“You’re teaching an electrician how to be an electrician,” Cain said. “You’re teaching a carpenter how to frame a building. You put a roof on a building, you’re teaching an inmate how to be a roofer.”
The commissioner also believes allowing incarcerated people to construct buildings for prison training programs could help save taxpayer money. That is especially true as construction-related costs remain high, he said.
A Department of Administration and Finance spokesperson declined to comment.
During a previous legislative session, Cain said he tried to get a law passed to allow incarcerated people to construct buildings, but he said the timing didn’t work out and the effort didn’t have momentum.
Now that he has reentry, job training and other programs in place, Cain said he has a way to show the Legislature that it should invest in more of his efforts.
Since becoming commissioner in 2020, Cain has focused on rehabilitation and reentry as a way to prevent people from returning to prison. Skilled jobs training has been part of those efforts.
Last year, MDOC debuted a mobile welding training center. It started with a group of women at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Pearl and moved to the South Mississippi Correctional Institution in Leakesville.
Earlier this year, MDOC accepted a donated tractor trailer from Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey and District Attorney Bubba Bramlett that was seized during a drug transportation arrest on Interstate 20. The vehicle was turned into a simulator to train incarcerated people for careers in commercial truck driving.
“Now the trend is reentry, and reentry only happens when you send them out with a skill so he can get a job,” Cain said.
Businesses may not want to hire a formerly incarcerated person to sweep the floor, but he said they may be more inclined to if they are certified and have a skill such as welding, truck driving or roofing.
More than 9,000 people leave the Missisisppi prison system each year, according to a 2021 report by the Corrections and Criminal Justice Oversight Task Force, which Cain is a member of.
“Let me have the freedom to teach them how to build those buildings and pour the concrete and let them do that and to prove themselves,” Cain said.
